Modern day agriculture has become increasingly efficient in the past century and this trend must continue in order to produce a sufficient food supply for the increasing world population. A notable advancement in agricultural production was the introduction of mechanized irrigation systems, such as linear move irrigation systems. These irrigation systems make it possible to irrigate entire fields, and reduce a crop yield's vulnerability to extreme weather conditions. The ability to monitor and to control the amount of water and/or nutrients (applicants) applied to an agricultural field has increased the amount of farmable acres in the world and increases the likelihood of a profitable crop yield. These irrigation systems typically include a control device configured to furnish a user interface allowing the operator to monitor and control one or more functions or operations of the irrigation system.
In the current state of the art, when an irrigation system traverses rough or hilly terrain, a position reporting device may be shifted off the desired path as the machine tips, inducing an error that falsely shows that the irrigation system has moved off the desired path. In response, a guidance system of the irrigation system may cause the irrigation system to steer in response to a detected positional change. In doing so, the irrigation system may actually be off the desired path when the terrain is no longer rough or hilly, which causes the guidance system to steer again to compensate for the previous steering action. This unrequired steering may cause the irrigation system to have wider wheel tracks and to steer more than required. As disclosed below, the present invention overcomes these important limitations.